Sooner Or Later-House of Heroes

We are beginning to do those sorts of events that happen at endings, and it is still all a little surreal. After all, I still have a month left in South Africa, but I have been to a Leaver’s Dinner and a Farewell Dinner in just the past five days, with more to come. It seems odd to me that we are doing these things so early, but it does make sense that once finals start, people will be busy studying, and everyone will be leaving campus sporadically as they finish their exams.

On Wednesday, I went to my first Leaver’s Dinner, which is something that seems to happen everywhere here. I was confused the first time I heard the term, but I hear it all the time now, and it is pretty self explanatory, after all: it is a dinner to celebrate the people that are leaving, whether they are third year students graduating at the end of the year—as was the case at my Hall’s dinner—or a more mixed collection of people... graduating with their bachelor's, completing their honor year, or leaving for another reason (such as going home to the United States) which is what the makeup of my cell group’s leavers dinner will be. Either way, it seems that everyone has a leaver's dinner: res halls, societies, church groups… just another norm here that isn’t done in quite the same way at home.

Actually, as I went into my hall’s Leaver Dinner on Wednesday, I tried to imagine doing something like it in Servo at the end of the year, and I just couldn’t do it. Everyone had gotten dressed up, some people in very fancy dresses (I didn’t bring such nice clothes, but I made a nice sundress work without standing out) and each table of people had decorated their table to make it fancy and pretty. The food was better than most meals that I have had in the dining hall all year, and the company was good, of course. We signed up and sat at designated tables (that we were then responsible for decorating), and I thought it was sweet when my friend Elri came to my room the day the lists went up (before I even knew we were having a leaver’s dinner) to inform me that she had signed me up to be at their table. I actually made some new friends that night, who I regaled with tales of Thanksgiving and my opinion of mullets. We had some awards and such after dinner, and the whole thing made me realize that Rhodes reminds me a bit of Hogwarts… mostly this is because of the way that exams are structured, with everyone freaking out and studying and taking exams in these huge halls with a ton of stress-inducing rules. 

I feel like I should give you some highlights of the questions I have been asked by people here, since some of them has amused me greatly and others might amuse you:

-Is spring break in America like it is in the movies?

-Are fraternities in America like they are in the movies?

-What is Thanksgiving all about?

-Which are hotter: American or South African guys?

-Do people in the states do drugs? ...No, not pot, everyone does pot, I mean real drugs?

-Do people actually support the Tea Party movement?

-You live in Maryland… that’s Elvis’ home, right? (Seriously, multiple people have said this to me)

-Does this taste like the Mexican food you have in the states? (NO)

There have been so many more, but I can’t force my brain to think of them just now… Anyway, Saturday night was the Farewell Dinner for my travel abroad program, so the Rhodes Coordinator and I rode to Port Elizabeth and met the NMMU students for a fancy diner, which I appreciated very much. Besides eating snails, which never ceases to amuse me, I had deep fried Lindt balls for desert, which just sounds like an idea that couldn’t go wrong. I had flashbacks to making deep fried oreos in my kitchen at home with Mom and Melissa, and although these were not really the same (I think they put Lindt balls in phyllo squares and dropped them into a fryer… it reminded me of a shooting star) it had Lindt chocolate in it so obviously it was a good thing. It was funny to be having a farewell dinner with people that I barely know (I have only seen the NMMU students a few times since I got here), but I balanced it later that night by getting to Skype with my cousin Margie (and momentarily with her husband Jerry, who had gotten home from Iraq the day before and surprised Margie at work a week earlier than she thought he might come home. So sweet!). The internet is really a wonderful thing, even if it does encourage facebook stalking over homework. I should really be getting back to that right now, by the way… the homework, not the facebook stalking.